A Solution to Sound it Out

As a future teacher, I spend a lot of time in classrooms assisting other teachers or simply observing teachers. One task I frequently help with is listening to children read. As a child reads and stumbles upon difficult words I am often at a loss for how to help the child. I often find myself saying, "sound it out." Reading Catherine Compton-Lilly's article, "Sounding Out": A Pervasive Cultural Model of Reading, provided me with great insight into the actual meaning of sound it out and provided me with ideas for more effective strategies when helping children to solve words within text.

In her article,  Compton-Lilly states, "Sounding out is a cultural model for reading that is repeatedly voiced by students and their parents... it captures an image of reading that parents and children share, it does not describe what my students actually do when they read." Though students and parents may think that sounding out a word is helpful, students need more efficient ways to understand words within text. If students only learn to sound out every letter within a word, they will undoubtedly miss important context within the story.

Rather than provide students with a simple sound it out strategy, Compton-Lilly, and Pat Johnson and Katie Keier, authors of Catching Readers Before They Fall, advise teachers to provide students with multiple strategies for solving words within text. All three authors recommend using the following three sources to solve unknown words within text:

1. Meaning: background information, information from pictures, ideas from context of the story. Key Question- What makes sense?
2. Structure: how does it sound, Key Question- Does it sound right?
3. Visual: letter and sound knowledge, Key Question- Do the words look right?

As a teacher it is important to help students find a balance between all three sources (Meaning, Structure, Visual). Through a balance of all three sources, students will have multiple effective ways to solve unknown words within new texts.